Other things people have noted:
- Arachnaphobes beware, spiders can climb on walls now.
- Four blocks of sand make a block of sandstone.
- The ‘super-secret’ new recipe seems to be some kind of dispenser, and people have made arrow traps with it.
- Dyes are made by putting flowers on a crafting bench.
- Skeletons drop bones now, purpose unknown.
- There are different tree shapes in different biomes now, like pine trees in wintry areas.
- There’s a new ore block, lapis lazuli.
- Burned logs make charcoal?
There’s also a horrible performance problem right now where it lags for a bit every three seconds because of some debug code left in. Hopefully they get rid of that soon.
Volbard
2702
Cool, I like new blocks!
I hear there’s an octopus too, has anyone seen it?
Bluto
2703
Bones apparently craft into bone meal that’s used in gray dye.
Examples of the new tree shapes:
Pogo
2705
God dammit. I had just jumped into one of my previous worlds and was doing a bunch of work. I’ll never get that terrain to show up in a new world.
I think newly-planted trees will come up as the new biome-dependent type; the only thing you’d really be missing out on with an old world is lapis lazuli ore blocks (they’re down around redstone level, apparently).
And it looks like bone meal can also be used as a fertilizer, to make wheat and trees grow nearly instantly.
Pogo
2708
Because it’s too awesome.
Blips
2709
*edit: double post from lag
Blips
2710
I was over at a friends place the other day when he mentioned he had bought Minecraft. I hadn’t up till that point really investigated the game much but I knew that it was selling like crazy for an indie game so naturally I asked if I could check it out.
He showed me some of the stuff he had built such as a giant underground railroad system and a castle overflowing with lava. It all looked really cool and I played it for a bit while he gave me tips and random bits of info about the game.
I died a few times at night to the incredibly annoying spiders (and got some of my stuff destroyed by those green things) but eventually began to get a bit bored. It seems the game is a lot like Lego, in that you can let your imagination go wild and create really amazing things… but as a game, it is lacking conflict.
The guys that appear at night are all fine and great, but I found myself wishing almost constantly for my mountain side bunker to come under attack from an enemy force. I almost instantly got addicted to what the game offers but it felt hollow because it was without purpose. Building amazing castles and extravagant locking doors and traps are fun, but without the need for them I lost interest in “playing” the game.
I guess I’m writing this in hopes that the game will become more fleshed out with opposing forces. I didn’t have a chance to check out the multiplayer, so perhaps that is where are all fun is - I just know that the single player portion of the game would be immensely more enjoyable (for me at least) if there was other AIs out there, building their own castles in hope of conquering others.
Teiman
2711
Is a survival game, the proper way to play it and have fun, is to “conquer” it.
Starting from nothing, withouth understanding how the world even work, and building your own empire from nothing, and finding your own way to play.
Is a sandbox game, so don’t expect a exterior motive to play. Sandbox games are not for everyone, most people need some hand-holding.
Blips
2712
It has nothing to do with hand-holding; I love the freedom offered by the game. But the survival portion of the game is conquered immediately by digging 3 blocks down and replacing the first block with dirt since no enemy has the ability (or intelligence) to directly attack any obstacles that are obscuring the player.
Teiman
2713
You can do that, but realistically, is something you only do the first time you play the game… since waiting for the next day, hearing the terrorific sounds of the monsters around, on complete dark, make people feel uneasy.
On my first game, I got lost in a cave, without tools, without anything… I carved the whole mountain with my bare hands, digging in circles, to the top. It was like being buried alive, a mile deeper.
…
…but I digress. If you do that, you have not conquered the game, the game have conquered you, and literally cornered you in a dirty hole.
Maybe “survive” is the wrong word, because yea, digging a hole and living there is “surviving”, but is not making a live, is barely living.
The game would be really cool if you could do that. But right now there is nothing to conquer, and you can’t make an “empire” (no, a bunch of empty buildings is not an empire).
I understand the appeal of building great stuff, but imo that’s the point of the Creative mode. Survival should be a bit more interesting, still in a sandbox but with long term goals, instead of being just like creative but with monsters that may kill you.
Sandboxes don’t have to be aimless, sandboxes can have a goal, it’s just you can go for it in every way possible with the tools in the sandbox to do it.
Pogo
2715
This is the difference between you and people who know how to make their own fun. There are plenty of ways to circumvent “intended gameplay mechanics” in nearly any video game ever made. Just because you can do something to “win” doesn’t mean that it’s the same way other people will enjoy overcoming a game’s obstacles.
Bluto
2716
Get out and explore- especially large cave systems, and let me know if you’ve conquered it.
This latest update has broken the game somewhat. Very laggy and I get frequent Java crashes.
For what it’s worth to the conversation, an Adventure Mode will be implemented to the game upon full release later this year. This will have plot, goals, etc.
Blips
2719
Normally I’d agree, but I don’t see how digging a hole is in any way circumventing the gameplay - it is making full use of a mechanic in the way that it’s intended.
Other than aesthetic and creative appeal, there is no difference between a hole and a stone wall: both keep the nasties at bay.
Teiman
2720
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
I understand the appeal of building great stuff, but imo that’s the point of the Creative mode.
Since Minecraft is a sandbox, the point is anything you want it to be. Now that there are music blocks, some people can built music.
Survival should be a bit more interesting, still in a sandbox but with long term goals, instead of being just like creative but with monsters that may kill you.
If you add X, then the game will be X. Withouth even a score, the game is about anything you can imagine.
But I agree that the game don’t help much to imagine something beyond building castles and railroalds systems. Maybe what the game really want, is a laser system, or mob towns, so people that choose to, can choose to destroy these towns to “pacify” the world. LOVE has something like that…
